


nothing better

by facingthenorthwind (spacegandalf)



Series: everybody lives (except peter) [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Book 3: Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Fix-It, Fluff, M/M, No Angst, Snowball Fight
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-15
Updated: 2018-11-15
Packaged: 2019-08-04 19:20:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,235
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16352678
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spacegandalf/pseuds/facingthenorthwind
Summary: Looking back, Harry would remember his third year at Hogwarts as, well, remarkably normal compared to everything that happened all the other years of his schooling. Remus would remember it as the best year of his life. Sirius would remember that time Dumbledore walked in on him and Remus in a compromising position.Absolutely nothing of consequence happened in the 1993-94 school year. It was perfect.





	nothing better

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to renaissance, Abby, Chiara, Deni, Kayla and everyone else who read this in various stages of completion -- you're the greatest and it wouldn't have happened without you. And thanks to the fest creators for running the fest and getting me to give these losers a happy ending for once!
> 
> This was inspired by [+this](http://defractum.tumblr.com/post/174795221975/wingedcorgi-bothering-remus-at-work-a-birth) art by the incredible defractum on tumblr. 
> 
> I'm not finished with this universe, but all the other things I have half-written are much angstier, whereas this is almost angst-free, so enjoy!

When Dumbledore offered Remus the job, he followed immediately with, "I'm afraid there's no job opening for Sirius," even though Sirius was not in the room. "Several of our staff with families live off-grounds and floo into school each morning; generally, only heads of house are expected to be on-call at all times."

He made it sound like these were two unrelated facts. A week later, Sirius bought a cottage in Hogsmeade. 

Remus arrived at school a month before the students did, a stack of reference books the library probably already had and his lesson plans in his battered suitcase. (Sirius had offered to replace it so many times that these days it only ended in a fight fifty percent of the time; the other half Remus simply ignored.) Professor McGonagall met him in the Entrance Hall, nodding to herself as she looked him over. He’d bought new robes — well, Sirius had convinced him he had to buy new robes — so there was no hole in the sleeve to fiddle with as she assessed him. He made a mental note to point out that actually, worn-out robes _were_ good to Sirius later.

She showed him his office (second floor, with big windows that let him look out on both the Lake _and_ the Quidditch Pitch) and gave him instructions for how to charm his watch to alert him when someone knocked on his office door, even when he was at home in Hogsmeade.

Part of the agreement he'd made with Dumbledore involved being provided with Wolfsbane Potion every month, but there was no point in taking it yet — the full moon was in a fortnight, so he would have to start the morning after. There was a steaming goblet of it on his desk as some sort of gesture and he gagged at the smell, wondering how he would manage to force it down. 

She also showed him the entrance to the kitchens. He pretended not to know it already, but he suspected she saw right through him. At least now he wasn't breaking any rules by visiting the ticklish pear. She raised a single eyebrow when he giggled at the thought — "ticklish pear" still sounded like some sort of dirty euphemism, but he could hardly say that to Professor McGonagall. Even if she _had_ told him to call her Minerva unless they were in front of students.

After a tour of the staffroom (he noted they still hadn't got rid of the stain Sirius made on the north-facing wall in sixth year with the bundiwort essence), she deposited him at the Hospital Wing, which still smelled exactly as it did when he was at school. He wasn't sure why he expected it to smell _different_ , exactly -- it just instantly threw him back twenty years and he had to stand there for a moment, blinking and reminding himself that actually he was thirty-three, he had a full-time job, he hadn't hurt a single human during a transformation and against all odds, everything had turned out alright. 

Madam Pomfrey ("You may as well call me Poppy now,") tutted as she inspected the battlefield that was his body and shook her head at the pearly cross-hatching of scar tissue. She gave him a regime of creams and ointments and potions and the smells instantly brought back the bone-deep exhaustion of the morning after a full moon. 

He thanked her and left, not sure what to do with the ache in the back of his throat.

* * *

Sirius insisted on helping him set up his office, though Remus maintained this was just so Sirius could distract him instead. He spent more time baiting the grindylow than putting books on shelves, which meant he couldn’t tease Remus when he couldn’t stop grinning about the fact that he had a _job_ and an _office_ and _books_. He had so many plans for the year — from what Harry had told him, their previous instruction had been terrible, so he had no idea how much remedial work his more senior classes would require, but Dumbledore had allowed him access to all sorts of creatures for hands-on experience. Not even the prospect of marking essays could dim his enthusiasm for the year ahead.

The day inevitably ended with Sirius nursing a nasty bite on his hand that was already turning green by the time Remus convinced him to go to the Hospital Wing. The look Madam Pomfrey gave them both when they turned up made him laugh until he cried — sure, he was going grey and he could get a hangover from just _looking_ at a bottle of firewhiskey these days, but in this moment he was fifteen years old and about to burst with the sheer joy he felt. 

He also felt some vindictive pleasure at watching Sirius make a face as he drank a particularly repulsive potion, but who was counting?

“Shut up,” Sirius grumbled as they walked back to his office half an hour later. “I’ve seen the apothecary she’s given you.”

Remus couldn’t resist kissing him quickly, smiling against his lips. He knew that when term started he wouldn’t be able to do this — Sirius wouldn’t be allowed in the castle, because when had anyone seen an adult who wasn’t a staff member in the castle? — but that was a month away and right now he was thirty-three and he had a full-time job and a man he loved and everything was perfect.

* * *

Remus was nervous his first day of teaching but not as nervous as he expected. It turned out being a werewolf and living through a war that killed more friends than he cared to count had some advantages: namely, the knowledge that no amount of obnoxious teenagers could inspire fear like being cornered by four Death Eaters and then hearing Voldemort's voice as he arrived to the scene of the carnage.

When he arrived home in the evening, Sirius was curled up on the sofa reading some trashy detective novel, a half-drunk cup of tea on the coffee table next to an untouched glass of whiskey — which was an odd choice, because Sirius didn’t like whiskey. 

“Did you think I’d immediately need a stiff drink as soon as I got home?” he asked, trying to keep the laughter from his voice and failing. 

“We were right horrors, so if you had anyone even _approaching_ our level you would absolutely need a stiff drink,” Sirius said, and Remus couldn’t fault his logic, in all honesty.

“Thankfully for both of us,” Remus said, stealing Sirius’s tea and sitting down next to him, “no one could hold a candle to the reign of terror that was the Marauders. When I asked for examples of Dark creatures, one First Year said spiders, though. Her logic was that anything that terrifying had to be Dark, and I gave her five points to Ravenclaw for her impeccable reasoning skills.”

Remus took a sip and remembered too late that Sirius drank his tea black. Sirius, of course, laughed at the face he pulled instead of warning him beforehand. He took the mug from Remus’s hands and twisted around so he could flick his wand at the kettle, filling it and setting it to boil. 

“Did you have Harry?” Sirius asked when he was done, kissing him briefly on the mouth before curling on the sofa to face him.

“No, I have the Gryffindor Third Years tomorrow. I had Slytherin today — Lucius Malfoy’s son is, well, exactly what you’d expect from Malfoy’s son. He has honest-to-God _goons_ , Padfoot. I had to concentrate really hard on not laughing.”

“Probably do him good to have someone laugh at him,” Sirius said, and Remus rolled his eyes.

“Not a teacher, though.” Sirius shrugged and sipped on his tea. “Padfoot, I can’t — I’m not allowed to show that kind of favouritism and you know it.”

“I bet Snivellus does.” 

“... Yes, he probably does, but that doesn’t mean I can sink to his level. Besides, I’m — I don’t want to give any cause for Dumbledore to fire me.” He looked away, rubbing the material of his robes between his fingers. 

“Moony—” Remus didn’t need to look at Sirius to know he was frowning. “He’s not going to fire you. You’re not in a more precarious position than Snape — for one, he approached you about it! Two, you’re a wonderful teacher — no, shut up, I know you are, I don’t need to be in your classroom to know it. Three, he doesn’t give a shit that you’re a werewolf, and four, how’s he going to fill the position when term’s already started?”

“That’s not actually—”

“Remus Lupin, if you don’t want to give Lucius Malfoy’s tosser of a son what’s coming to him, then fine, but please believe that you belong in that office.”

Remus Lupin had learnt, by age thirty-three, that there were some battles you should just forfeit. There was no point in fighting them. He wasn’t going to win this one, so what was the difference between surrender and admitting your opponent was right? 

Sirius clearly thought they were the same thing, if the way he smiled when Remus nodded reluctantly was any indication.

“What do you fancy for dinner? I could pop out and get a curry?”

Remus thought of the way his Hufflepuff First Years had looked up at him solemnly, as if he were the arbiter of all knowledge; of the way his office already felt _right_ ; of the warmth he felt seeing Sirius waiting for him to come home — and he said yes, a curry sounded just fine.

* * *

Sirius only made it to Thursday before he snuck into Hogwarts.

He had learnt the hard way that you could not operate the Floo Network while in animagus form, but he became a dog as soon as he landed in front of Remus’s office fireplace. Remus chose to ignore him at first — as long as he remained a dog, there was some plausible deniability. Besides, Remus _had_ told Sirius he’d be staying back for a few hours to do some marking, so he’d brought this on himself. 

He could have gone home as soon as classes were over, but he’d found that staying back in his office was more productive. While Pomona had assumed yesterday that his comment about working better in his office than at home had been referring to Sirius distracting _him_ (his immediate blush probably hadn’t helped), it was much more accurate to say that he distracted Sirius. 

It was a misconception he had found throughout his school years that Remus was the only one of them with any sort of work ethic when it came to studying. The opposite was in fact true: with the exception of Peter, who had occasionally broken into a spontaneous rash at the thought of doing an essay, Remus had the worst work ethic of any of them. Sirius and James would get their work done immediately without any procrastination, seemingly faster than was humanly possible. Remus would procrastinate and get distracted and end up staying up half the night before it was due to scrape out something that was never quite as good as what they turned in. 

(Occasionally, Sirius and James genuinely would forget to do their work and scribble something over breakfast. This made no impact on their marks, and often these would be marked even higher than their usual efforts. If they hadn’t been such good friends, Remus would have loathed them.)

So this was why Remus was sitting at his desk (!) in his office (!) in Hogwarts where he was a teacher (!!!), trying to grind out the marking he had already left until the last minute.

Initially, the canine addition actually worked out well — Remus marked essays with his right hand (why was it that no one in First Year could spell ‘gargoyle’?) and scratched Padfoot behind his ears with his left — but Remus was completely unsurprised when Padfoot decided that actually, he and Remus should share the chair, despite the fact that he was a very large dog and the chair was very definitely only meant for a single human. 

Remus made the mistake of saying, “You probably take up more space as a dog than a human,” and even though it was muffled by the fact that he had a mouthful of fur (hideous, he’d _seen_ the kind of stuff Padfoot would delight in rolling in), he found himself now with a lap full of a human Sirius Black.

“Better?” Sirius asked, grinning like he knew exactly what Remus was going to say next.

“Absolutely not, you giant sod, get your own chair.”

“Our love is dead!” Sirius said, swooning dramatically right onto the essay Remus was trying to read. “We had a good few years, I guess—”

“I’d hardly call seventeen a few,” Remus said, tugging gently at the parchment underneath Sirius in an attempt to free it without ripping it.

“Shit, really? That long?” Sirius sat up suddenly, which freed the parchment but also completely unbalanced Remus, and they both fell to the floor with a thud. 

For a moment, Remus was struck with a kind of fear he hadn’t felt since late 1981 — there was red trickling down Sirius’s face and some of his hair was flat against his skull, sodden. It was only when he saw the empty ink bottle near his hand that he realised it wasn’t blood at all and no one was in danger. 

“You’re buying me new red ink,” he said, and he tried to look cross even as he reached gently for Sirius’s head to make sure there really wasn’t a copiously-bleeding head wound. Sirius turned to give him better access and didn’t say anything as Remus probed his scalp, watching his face for any sign that it was painful. Satisfied that it was 100% ink, Remus did his best to siphon it back into the inkwell, frowning as he only got about half of it back. Better than nothing, he supposed. It was probably all dusty and he’d blot all over everything he marked for the next month, but that’s what magic was for, undoing all your mistakes. Most of them. Sometimes.

“Can I help?” Sirius asked, breaking the quiet that had settled over them both. “With the essays, I mean. I’m not half as good as you, I’m sure, but I reckon I know enough to work out when an eleven-year-old is pulling something out of their arse.”

Remus had never considered asking him for help — he was perfectly capable of doing it by himself, of course, that was why he was being employed, that was why Dumbledore had asked him in the first place — but... perhaps it wasn’t necessarily weakness? Perhaps by accepting the offer he wouldn’t be saying he was too useless to do it, but just admitting that multiple hands make light work. 

Besides, he wouldn’t rely on him or anything. It would just be for today, as payment for spilling all his nice red ink.

“Alright, but I’m doing all the Slytherin ones.”

He pretended not to hear Sirius say, “Damn,” very softly.

* * *

Remus found that he settled into a rhythm — he successfully resisted laughing at Lucius Malfoy’s son and his goons; Harry only called him by his first name once; and Sirius restrained himself and only snuck into the kitchens after curfew.

(Remus had had enough of fighting losing battles for a lifetime.)

By the time the winter holidays rolled around, he was actually sad at the prospect of two whole weeks without classes. When he said as much to Sirius, Sirius called him a swot and a loser and grabbed his arse, completely derailing their plans to go watch the Slytherin-Hufflepuff quidditch match. Neither team was all that good anyway, and Sirius would have spent the whole time muttering ways he could curse the Slytherin team without anyone noticing. It was for the best, probably.

Sirius made the holidays worth his while, although strictly speaking the only thing _different_ was that there were a lot more lazy morning sleep-ins and less opportunities for Sirius to spill tea all over his office rug. 

The last day before term went back, there was a snowfall overnight, blanketing the world in white that got into Remus’s shoes and soaked his socks immediately. Once Sirius stopped laughing at him and redid the water-repelling charms on his shoes, they made the wiser decision of taking the floo to the Potters’ instead. 

Remus had, admittedly, been worried that it would be awkward to have your teacher over for The Annual No Holds Barred Marauder Snowball Fight To The Death (Or Hot Chocolate, Whichever Came First), but Harry clearly shared no such concerns — just grinned when James said they had been “practising their technique” and “this year, the Potters will emerge victorious to regain the crown”. 

As was tradition, Sirius grumbled about the fact that Harry was no longer a baby and was now a valuable member of the Potter Snowball Fight Team and thus he and Remus were at a disadvantage. James said they should have thought of that when they decided not to have children.

(This was the only response that avoided the otherwise inevitable dip in mood when they thought of the ideal third member of their party. It had been twelve years, and yet—)

They used their ten minutes of building time to secure the foundations of the best snow fort yet. Apparently, Sirius had been reading up on architecture while Remus was working for a living, and had several suggestions on improving the structural integrity in the face of frontal assault. He wanted to try some tactic of melting and then rapidly re-freezing the foundations, but wands had been forbidden since The Incident of 1987 and none of the matches in the matchbook would catch. (Only one member of each team was allowed a wand — or perhaps it was better to say they had confiscated James’ and Sirius’s wands so they wouldn’t give into temptation.)

“I can’t believe you’d betray me like this,” Sirius hissed when Remus refused to perform a warming charm, huddled up against Remus in a way that seriously undermined his tone. “You have one term as a teacher, as some kind of ‘role model’ to the ‘youth’ and then you refuse to break rules—” 

“I’m not just a teacher, I’m Harry’s teacher!”

“He’s heard plenty of stories from Prongs to completely destroy any authority you might have over him, what’s one more rule?”

“Last time you broke the rules, it was me who had to clean all the slugs out of the cupboards. Do you know how annoyi—” He broke off at the sound of a dull thud. The assault had begun.

The object was to destroy the other team’s fort. Standard rules of engagement applied (no rocks, no ice, no wands, no punching, no kicking). You could forfeit at any time by proclaiming you were too cold. Drawing blood was an instant forfeit. Making Harry cry was an instant forfeit, although that rule hadn’t actually applied in years. 

Team Black-Lupin had won last year, breaking the four-year streak of Team Potter. Dignity, bragging rights and slug-free cupboards all depended on their ability to play a good, fair game — and destroy Fort Potter with extreme prejudice.

Technically, hitting people with snowballs was a waste of snowballs, since the fort was the main target. That didn’t stop either side, and Remus soon found himself with snow inside his collar and up one of his sleeves somehow, but the fact that he’d got Lily full in the face made up for it. 

The one small hitch in the otherwise glorious Annual No Holds Barred Marauder Snowball Fight To The Death (Or Hot Chocolate, Whichever Came First) was that it was actually very difficult to destroy a snow fort only with snowballs. They’d managed the first two years, but then became too good at building snow forts and the fight had just fizzled out when they all communally agreed they were too cold and wet to continue.

The true innovation was the Jousting Round.

Lily had named it. Sirius had pointed out that it was fencing, not jousting, because they didn’t have horses, but Lily’s logic was flawless: it sounded way cooler. 

Each team nominated a champion, and those two champions fenced for their honour and the honour of their teammate(s). Whoever got the first touch won. This introduced a complication which meant that Sirius would swear up and down that 1987’s result was null and void, since making Harry cry was an automatic forfeit but also Team Potter had nominated six-year-old Harry as their Jousting Champion, so Sirius had no choice but to throw the match. 

It was probably solely due to the amount of complaining he did that James didn’t try the same trick the next year. This year, it came down to Lily and Sirius circling each other, sizing each other up. Sirius had lost his hat somewhere in the heat of battle and there was a clump of half-melted snow in his hair. Lily looked almost like a snowman with snow sticking all down her front. 

James was doing commentary in a funny voice because Harry used to giggle madly at it and even though he was thirteen now and far too old to giggle, he hadn’t actually told his dad to stop.

“It’s Potter versus Black, the matchup of the century! The press is saying that Potter has been training for this all year — how will Black, a notorious slacker, stand up to such a dedicated athlete?”

“I heard that!” Sirius yelled, lunging for Lily who stepped neatly out of the way. “How do they allow such partisan commentary?”

Remus rolled his eyes and held an imaginary microphone up to his lips. “Sirius Black, known mostly for lounging around Hogsmeade, buying half of Honeydukes and breaking into a school on a regular basis is clearly the ideal Team Black-Lupin representative. He’s been training since birth, honing his jousting skills in the Black family residence which was full of ghouls, ugly umbrella stands and snuffboxes which once tried to eat his nose right off his face. Will such a long time away from the ideal training ground hinder his ability to perform? He can talk a big game but can he deliver when the stakes are this high?”

“Sofa! You! Sleeping on it!” Sirius said, punctuating his words with jabs at Lily, which all missed. “The highest form of betrayal! I thought we were in love!”

“I only married you for the money,” Remus said, still into the pretend microphone for some reason. James had rubbed off on him.

It was then that Sirius made the fatal mistake — he lost focus so he could do a suitably shocked and offended gasp, which quickly became a very _real_ shocked and offended gasp when Lily jabbed him right between the ribs.

“Shit!” He staggered dramatically, finally falling to his knees and toppling face-first into the snow.

“And the winner of the 1994 Annual No Holds Barred Marauder Snowball Fight To The Death (Or Hot Chocolate, Whichever Came First) is Team Potter, restoring the crown’s rightful place in Godric’s Hollow,” James said with glee. “The magnificent Lily Potter has vanquished the evil foe Sirius Black in a match that will go down in the history books.”

As they all went back inside for the Closing Ceremony, Remus offered Sirius his beanie back as a peace offering, and Sirius took it, unable to keep a straight face. “For my money, really? I’m sure last time you said you only married me for my looks.”

“Both can be true,” Remus said, giving him an exaggerated once over which was made all the more absurd by the fact that his fluorescent jacket and waterproof trousers left literally everything to the imagination. 

“Oi, losers, I believe you still have responsibilities,” Lily shouted, and Sirius shook his head, grumbling as they made sure to track as much snow as possible into the house.

The last part was the crown presentation. The crown was courtesy of Harry circa 1987, when he had been hung up on the figure of speech and decided to make one out of cardboard, sequins and glitter glue. He had written in a large, uncontrolled hand everyone’s names as well, with such spelling innovations as “Lili”, “Pad”, “Jms” and “Rims”, although his own name was perfect. James wouldn’t let him make another crown, despite Harry volunteering to make it out of the same glittery materials, and he cringed whenever it was brought out. One day, Remus was sure, Harry would work out that he could just destroy it, but thankfully that hadn’t occurred to him yet.

“Well done, O Wondrous Vanquishers of the Elements Themselves,” Sirius said with a bow, presenting the crown to Lily.

“Thank you. For next year, I recommend getting a better husband and not telegraphing your movements so much,” Lily said, grinning.

“I’ll take that under advisement,” Sirius said, but as the Potters went to get the hot chocolate, he pulled Remus’s hat off and kissed him, running his fingers through Remus’s hair.

Sirius’s nose was freezing and Remus could feel a trickle of melted snow making its way down his back as he kissed him and James’s boasting would be insufferable — but he couldn’t think of anywhere he’d rather be.


End file.
